Subject
L, M, N: alphabetic games in ADA
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One of the frequent guests of floramors (palatial brothels) built by David van Veen is King Victor, the Antiterran male version (in fact, antipode) of Queen Victoria. But his name may also hint at Victor Hugo (1802-85), the famous French poet and novelist of the "Victorian" era who did not scorn prostitutes.
The title character in Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) is the old Gothic Cathedral, whose Western facade looks rather like H, Hugo's (but also Hegel's, Heine's, Herzen's and Herwegh's) initial.
Roman H looks like the Cyrillic counterpart of Roman N, Nabokov's initial. In the old Russian alphabet this H-like letter was called Nash ("our," notre)* and preceded by Myslete (as M was called).
Myslete** reminds one of Myslitel' ("The Thinker"), the title Aldanov gave (after Le Penseur, a chimera in Notre-Dame***) his tetralogy (1921-26) about the French Revolution.
Aldanov is the pen-name of VN's friend and fellow writer Mark Landau (1886-1957). Like Lute (as Paris is sometimes called on Antiterra****) and Leningrad (St. Petersburg's name in 1924-91), Aldanov's real name begins with an L, the letter that precedes M in the alphabet. The Cyrillic counterpart (called lyudi, "people,"***** in the old Russian alphabet) of Roman L resembles Roman V turned upside down.******
V is Van Veen's (Ada's protagonist's) and King Victor's initial. One of King Victor's aliases he uses when visiting floramors is "Mr. Vrotic" (2.3). It reminds one of "erotic," nevrotik ("neurotic") and rotik ("little mouth"), the word composed by Lucette (who is linked to Esmeralda, the red-haired pseudo-gypsy girl in Notre-Dame de Paris) in a Flavita game (2.5), after which she is left with L, her own cheap initial. Rotik + L = klitor ("clitoris"), the word eight-year-old Lucette does not yet know.
Vrotic, erotic and neurotic end in c. Roman C looks like the Cyrillic counterpart (called slovo, "word," in the old Russian alphabet; slovo = volos, "hair") of Roman S. Smert' ("death") begins with S, as do Sena (Seine, the river that flows through Paris*******), sestra ("sister") and Samoubiystvo ("The Suicide"), the title of Aldanov's last novel (1956). Among its characters is Lenin (V. I. Ul'yanov, 1870-1924), who almost shares with VN his birthday (April 22) and after whom VN's home city was renamed. Both Lenin's birth (in Simbirsk, a Volgan city) and death (in Gorki, a village near Moscow) followed by the renaming of St. Petersburg can be real events that correspond to the L disaster, a mysterious catastrophe that happened on Antiterra in the beau milieu of the 19th century (1.3).********
*Nashi ("Us") and Ne nashi ("Them") are the titles of two chapters in Herzen's Byloe i dumy.
**cf. pisat' myslete, "to walk like a drunk"
***
****after Lutetia, the city's ancient name
*****unlike collective impersonal narod (people), lyudi is plural of chelovek (man)
******similarly, the Russian counterpart (called glagol', "gallows," in the old alphabet) of Roman G looks like Roman L turned upside down. Russian spelling of the name "Hugo" is Gyugo, Herzen would be Gertsen, Heinrich Heine, Genrikh Geyne, Herwegh, Gerveg, and Hegel, Gegel'.
*******Hugo's beloved daughter was drowned in Seine
********In my opinion, other "historical" events that may correspond to the Antiterran L disaster include the Fall (the lapse of human beings into a state of natural or innate sinfulness through the sin of Adam and Eve), Dostoevsky's mock execution in the Semyonovsky square in St. Petersburg on January 3, 1850 (New Style; January 3 is Lucette's birthday: 1.1) and the Russian "October" Revolution (which struck on November 7, 1917, NS; November 7 is Aldanov's birthday)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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The title character in Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) is the old Gothic Cathedral, whose Western facade looks rather like H, Hugo's (but also Hegel's, Heine's, Herzen's and Herwegh's) initial.
Roman H looks like the Cyrillic counterpart of Roman N, Nabokov's initial. In the old Russian alphabet this H-like letter was called Nash ("our," notre)* and preceded by Myslete (as M was called).
Myslete** reminds one of Myslitel' ("The Thinker"), the title Aldanov gave (after Le Penseur, a chimera in Notre-Dame***) his tetralogy (1921-26) about the French Revolution.
Aldanov is the pen-name of VN's friend and fellow writer Mark Landau (1886-1957). Like Lute (as Paris is sometimes called on Antiterra****) and Leningrad (St. Petersburg's name in 1924-91), Aldanov's real name begins with an L, the letter that precedes M in the alphabet. The Cyrillic counterpart (called lyudi, "people,"***** in the old Russian alphabet) of Roman L resembles Roman V turned upside down.******
V is Van Veen's (Ada's protagonist's) and King Victor's initial. One of King Victor's aliases he uses when visiting floramors is "Mr. Vrotic" (2.3). It reminds one of "erotic," nevrotik ("neurotic") and rotik ("little mouth"), the word composed by Lucette (who is linked to Esmeralda, the red-haired pseudo-gypsy girl in Notre-Dame de Paris) in a Flavita game (2.5), after which she is left with L, her own cheap initial. Rotik + L = klitor ("clitoris"), the word eight-year-old Lucette does not yet know.
Vrotic, erotic and neurotic end in c. Roman C looks like the Cyrillic counterpart (called slovo, "word," in the old Russian alphabet; slovo = volos, "hair") of Roman S. Smert' ("death") begins with S, as do Sena (Seine, the river that flows through Paris*******), sestra ("sister") and Samoubiystvo ("The Suicide"), the title of Aldanov's last novel (1956). Among its characters is Lenin (V. I. Ul'yanov, 1870-1924), who almost shares with VN his birthday (April 22) and after whom VN's home city was renamed. Both Lenin's birth (in Simbirsk, a Volgan city) and death (in Gorki, a village near Moscow) followed by the renaming of St. Petersburg can be real events that correspond to the L disaster, a mysterious catastrophe that happened on Antiterra in the beau milieu of the 19th century (1.3).********
*Nashi ("Us") and Ne nashi ("Them") are the titles of two chapters in Herzen's Byloe i dumy.
**cf. pisat' myslete, "to walk like a drunk"
***
****after Lutetia, the city's ancient name
*****unlike collective impersonal narod (people), lyudi is plural of chelovek (man)
******similarly, the Russian counterpart (called glagol', "gallows," in the old alphabet) of Roman G looks like Roman L turned upside down. Russian spelling of the name "Hugo" is Gyugo, Herzen would be Gertsen, Heinrich Heine, Genrikh Geyne, Herwegh, Gerveg, and Hegel, Gegel'.
*******Hugo's beloved daughter was drowned in Seine
********In my opinion, other "historical" events that may correspond to the Antiterran L disaster include the Fall (the lapse of human beings into a state of natural or innate sinfulness through the sin of Adam and Eve), Dostoevsky's mock execution in the Semyonovsky square in St. Petersburg on January 3, 1850 (New Style; January 3 is Lucette's birthday: 1.1) and the Russian "October" Revolution (which struck on November 7, 1917, NS; November 7 is Aldanov's birthday)
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
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